


A Basket of Reeds

by Aloysia_Virgata



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-06
Updated: 2015-01-06
Packaged: 2018-03-06 09:51:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3130199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aloysia_Virgata/pseuds/Aloysia_Virgata
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scully contemplates her life without William.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Basket of Reeds

**Author's Note:**

> This story was originally written for halfamoon on LiveJournal Thanks to scarletbaldy and MaybeAmanda for the betas. Warning: there be angst ahead.

Scully sits on a bench in Rock Creek Park with her hands clasped in her lap and her eyes downcast. She's wearing a baseball cap because she never wears baseball caps and she'd had this sort of wild idea that William wouldn't recognize her if she had it on. He had, of course. He waved bye-bye when she left him.   
  
Bye-bye, William.  
  
She crosses her arms tightly over her chest. The doctor wouldn't give her Parlodel to dry up the milk supply because he asserted the side effects were too risky. Just take some ibuprofen, he'd said. That'll do the trick. And don't pump anything. So she's got her aching breasts bound flat with an Ace bandage over a sports bra and is washing her pills down with copious amounts of sage tea because the nurse told her that was supposed to help too. Give it a week, tops.  
  
Time weighs heavily on her. She has ten days to change her mind. Ten days to show up, collect William, go home, and forget this nightmare ever happened. Maybe her mother will speak to her again. Scully hadn't told her until last night, when she and William were at a hotel whose location she did not disclose.   
  
Margaret Scully had exploded.  
  
She screamed at her daughter, told her she would be petitioning the courts on the grounds that Dana was completely, utterly out of her mind and was therefore incompetent to make this decision.  
  
Scully had said nothing.  
  
After a time, the shouting gave way to crying. "I'm moving to San Diego," her mother said finally. "I can't watch you live like this anymore, Dana."  
  
"That's fine," Scully said. She hung up the phone.  
  
Sometimes Scully feels as though she is practicing conjugations, the way she did when she took foreign language classes. I am fine, they were fine, we are fine, he will be fine. Everything is fine.  
  
She envisions Emily's grave out in San Diego. Will her mother visit it and think of William? Melissa? There are moments when Scully suspects she must have the opposite of King Midas's gift. Everything she touches falls apart.  
  
She reaches into her pocket, pulling out the crumpled photocopy of Mulder's death certificate. She smoothes it over her lap and, for the thousandth time, wonders what will happen if her fairly major deception comes to light. When Mulder returns he can go right to the judge and demand his son back. She will face criminal charges and get tossed out of the FBI.   
  
_If_ he returns. Which she has begun to seriously doubt. The doubt scrapes away one more layer, leaves her just a little more hollow. There is a part of her that hopes he never does come back because she knows he won't go to the judge at all. He'll forgive what she's done. She could deal with his rage, but knows his quiet acceptance will shatter what's left of her.  
  
Since she made the decision to give William up, a strange countdown had begun in her head. _This is the last time I will feed him applesauce,_ she'd think. _This is the last time I will give him a bath_. It was a sharp counterpoint to the baby book of firsts that she had locked in the safe deposit box on Wednesday.   
  
_This is the last time I will have to try and keep William occupied while we run an errand to the bank._  
  
Her cell phone rings. She answers it because talking to other people will keep her from talking to herself.  
  
"Hello?" she says.  
  
"Miss Scully? This is Oliver from the Good Shepherd Women's Center. Uh, we're at your apartment to pick up all the baby things but nobody's here and we can't -"  
  
"There's a key under the mat. Just clean out the entire nursery. Everything in it goes."  
  
"Okay ma'am. But someone has to be here because it's a liab-"  
  
"I also left five hundred dollars in the envelope. I think that should cover your liability concerns."  
  
There is a pause. "Should we put the key back under the mat when we're done?"  
  
"Yes. Thank you."   
  
She hangs up the phone, resisting the urge to throw it into the water. Instead, she jams it back into her pocket and cradles her head in her hands. The park becomes a tumble of sounds. Water over rocks, pigeons gurgling, passers-by talking to one another. She feels disconnected from all of it.  
  
Scully spent all night watching William sleep.   
  
She knows that she ought to return to the hotel and let her body rest, but she's afraid of dreaming. She opens her eyes and looks up, surprised to find the world distorted into an Impressionist painting by a glaze of tears. A man watches her hesitantly, as though he wants to see if she's all right but is not sure what to do. Furious with herself, she straightens up, offering him a broken smile. He nods jerkily and keeps walking. Scully uses her sleeve to wipe at her eyes until they feel dry and sore.   
  
She thinks about moving away from DC. Getting a tidy cottage in a place like Bucyrus, Ohio where she'll call herself Kate and maybe work at a medical practice run by some old codger named Doc Nelson who serves as both the town coroner and obstetrician.  
  
She'll be reasonably happy in Bucyrus. People will tell her about their aches and pains at the supermarket. "I warned you not to load all those chairs by yourself, Carl," she'll say kindly. "Come by later and I'll have a look at that back." She'll have a fling with the handsome mechanic over at the garage on Maple Street. She'll develop a consuming passion for gardening or cycling. Maybe Mulder will find her there. Maybe he won't.  
  
And maybe one day she'll walk into the town coffee shop - it'll have a mildly clever name, something like The Daily Grind or Brewed Awakenings - and there will be a young man behind the counter with blue eyes. And they'll look at each other, feeling as though there is something they should say but never saying it.  
  
 _Stop it_ , she orders herself. _This is how it starts. This is how you lose your fucking mind._  
  
Out towards the west, a crimson sunset highlights dense clusters of cirrus clouds. "Red sky at night, sailor's delight," her father used to say. He taught her how to navigate using the stars and a compass. How to tie knots. Back before she joined the FBI, her father called her Dana Do-Right, like the Mountie. He did not know about the rabbit or the snake.  
  
She shivers a little, and knows that there will be no white picket fence in Bucyrus. And it doesn't matter if she has ten days or ten thousand. She will not take William back. She will go home to her empty apartment tomorrow night, after the nursery has been repainted, and cook herself a meal that will go mostly uneaten. She'll return to work a little quieter, a little more distant. She'll wait for Mulder to come back. Her mother will not forgive her. And life will go on.  
  
The temperature sinks with the sun. Scully finally gets to her feet and walks back to her car. She climbs in, trying not to look at the indentations in the back where William's carseat was buckled. She takes a deep, shuddery breath and drives towards the Beltway.   
  
She heads west, passing the Naval Medical Center, and thinks of her father again. He'd been so proud of her thesis. Captain Scully greatly respected Einstein - a man of faith and science. "God does not play dice with the universe," the captain would often quote. Scully winces at the shooting pain in her breast and reflects that perhaps, if He did, she might at least have had a chance.


End file.
